Pig Dissection Reflection

    I think the purpose of this lab is to learn about the anatomy of a pig in a hands-on experience. Another purpose was to reinforce the understanding of the different systems of the body, such as the circulatory and digestive systems. We used a pi because the anatomy of a pig is quite similar to the anatomy of a human. This dissection showed the different organs and systems that we learned about in this unit. My favorite part of the dissection is when we cut open the heart. This is because we could see all the different chambers of the heart and the path that the blood flowed through. But I was kind of disappointed, as not much of the red and blue coloring got into the heart. This dissection was a very valuable experience because it was the first time I did a dissection of a complete organism. In previous times, I only did parts of an organism, such as a chicken wing. It also gave me a visual representation of what the inside of the body looks like.


Here is the video of our dissection tutorial:

 

20 Time Final Post

    During the time I have worked on my project, I have created multiple different programs to find the distance from one point to another, given a graph of points with distances between them. Here are links to two of the algorithms that I have made based on the graph shown below.

    I feel like I have done a fairly well job in this project, although I did not reach the goal to make a final project at the end. I think that I have kept myself fairly on track otherwise. I have focused on my work during class time, and I have learned a lot through this process. Also here are the links to my previous blog posts: 1 2 3 Reflection.

Graph:

Worded version:

AB=BA=3

AC=CA=39

AD=DA=4

AE=EA=99

BC=CB=67

BD=DB=8

BE=EB=43

CD=DC=25

CE=EC=12

DE=ED=58

AD+DC+CE=4+25+12=41

20 Time Individual Reflection

    In the beginning, when I was deciding on what I should do for my project, I chose programming, and decided to make a final project at the end demonstrating what I learned throughout the year. But now, I don't think that I can follow through with that idea. Although I am probably not going to do the final project, I did learn a couple of things during this 20 Time project.
    I choose this challenge because I sort of liked programming, and I wanted to try a coding language that I wasn't very comfortable with. I was focused on self-improvement and learning new things.
    My initial plan to achieve this goal was to learn something new every class, and then make a final project at the end of the year with the stuff that I had learned.
    Learning the different algorithms went fine, but I was kind of confused at times, since I was more used to programming in C++. I also did not have time to finish the final project that I had planned on doing at the end. This is probably not going to be a life-long project.
    I learned how to use good websites to find information. I also learned how to write more algorithms in Java. If I had the chance to do this project again, I would manage my schedule better so that I could fit in the project at the end. I have learned, about myself, that I sometimes do not have very good ideas for projects.
    I might continue this challenge, and make a project, such as copying some game.

Unit 9 Reflection

    This unit was about the classification and evolutionary relationships between different organisms. We learned about how scientists classified things into different categories, such as taxonomic levels (domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species). The classification system changed from a five kingdom system into a three domain system after scientists discovered the Archaea. The kingdoms of Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, and Protista were combined together and put under the domain of Eukarya. We also learned about bacteria, which could be classified as gram-positive or gram-negative, based on the peptidoglycan. We learned how different bacteria helped in different circumstances. Viruses are non-living organisms. They infect their host cell and go through lytic or lysogenic infections. Fungi are heterotrophs. They contain a hyphae, mycellium, fruiting body, and spores. They can be classified as sac fungi, bread molds, club fungi, and so on. We learned about different ways to classify plants. They could be classified as bryophytes, pterophytes, gymnosperms, or angiosperms, based on whether they had a vascular system, seeds, and/ or flowers. Then, we spent multiple vodcasts talking about animals. There were invertebrates, such as the porifera and platyhelminthes, which existed before vertebrates. Then there were arthropods, which included insects, crustacea, and echinoderms. Next, there were chordates, which included agnatha, jawed fish, and amphibians. Besides those chordates, there were also ones with amniotic sacs, including reptiles, birds, and mammals.We learned about how to find the differences between the all of the organisms.
                                        
                                    

    Besides the vodcasts, we watched a video can "Your Inner Fish," which talked about how we were related to fish. We also did a Geologic Timeline Project, and worked some more on the 20 Time Project.
    I would like to learn more about how birds transformed into dinosaurs, because I find that kind of fascinating. I wonder about how scientists decided to categorize all the organisms based on this way.
    I feel like What on Earth Evolved Presentation went fairly well. But I did not prepare very much, so I had to rely on looking at the slides during the presentation. Besides that, the presentation went fine, although I do not like doing those types of presentations very much. From this experience, I can learn that I should prepare more before I present.

Geologic Timeline Individual Reflection

In this project, we learned about the history of the Earth. We found that there were several major events in Earth's history, such as the first traces of life, occurring in the Proterozoic Eon. This is significant because we would not exist without life. The timeline supports this because it shows that life happened near the beginning of Earth's history, making it have more impact than the events happening later in Earth's history. We also found that the existence of plants, happening in the Ordovician Period was also very significant. This is because plants started to produce oxygen, enabling other things like animals to survive. The timeline supports this because it shows that plants started to exist before animals did. A third important event that happened in Earth's history is the breaking of the supercontinent Pangea. This is significant because it is why our planet looks like the way it is today. The timeline supports this because it shows that Pangea broke apart before present time. Earth has had a very long history, and each of us live for much less than a "second" of the Earth's "day." I was surprised by the fact that Earth was formed such a long time ago, and that there were many mass extinctions in its history. My thoughts on our impact is that it is a considerably big amount of change for such a small amount of existence.

Earth's history

20 Time Project with Java Post 3

I have had multiple discoveries and setbacks in my 20 Time Project. I have finished my program that uses DFS to compute the shortest distance from one point to another. Now I am working on the program that uses BFS to do the same thing, and after that, I will use dynamic programming (or some other algorithm) to so the same thing again. Some setbacks were that it was kind of hard to program in Java since I am more used to the C++ syntax. I plan to handle this setback by being more organized when I am programming. One discovery is that the two languages are not too different, so it isn't too hard to go between the two. I have gradually regained my memory on how to use Java. I can apply this to myself by finding the shortest path form one place to another.

Unit 8 Reflection

Include 2 photos/videos

    This unit was about evolution. We learned about Darwin and what he did with evolution. He sailed around the world in his H.M.S. Beagle and discovered many interesting things, such as finches with many different types of characteristics on the Galapagos Islands. He found that populations, and not individuals, evolved through natural selection. This was when a group of organisms with variation have different levels of fitness, making the more fit organisms more able to survive and reproduce, changing the gene pool of the population. There also can be gene flow, changing the gene pool through ways such as immigration and emigration. Also, we learned about different types of evolution, such as directional selection (ex: Hunger Games Lab) where organisms evolved towards one direction, stabilizing selection where organisms evolved toward the middle, and disruptive selection where organisms evolved toward the two extremes. Artificial selection was the results when humans chose the traits they wanted. We studied different causes of speciation, including behavioral isolation where two species had different behaviors, geographic isolation where two species where separated by a geographic feature, and temporal isolation, where two species have different times for mating. We also discovered different ways of how we could tell that organisms descended from a common ancestor. These ways included embryology, where scientists found that many species with common ancestors had similar embryos. Another way to tell ancestry was vestigial structures, structures used by the ancestors of certain species but not used by the current species. Fossils were also used to show how organisms evolved throughout the years.

Different types of selection

    I would like to learn more about how life began to exist. I have an unanswered question of how Darwin actually noticed that all the birds from the Galapagos Islands were related finches, and that they came from the South American mainland. I wonder about what would happen if a lot of the penguin population turned into black penguins.

Black Penguin

    Since the Unit 7 Reflection, I have said what I wanted more and had more eye contact in my conversations, to be more assertive. To be even more assertive, I need to stand up straighter and "fake it 'till I make it."